


Spirits in the Starlight

by Tharros



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU from City of Walls and Secrets, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ba Sing Se, Blue Spirit/Painted Lady - Freeform, Expanded Timeline, F/M, Slightly Altered Timeline, aged-up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23904985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tharros/pseuds/Tharros
Summary: In the slums of Ba Sing Se, two spirits come to life. One seeks to better himself, one seeks to better others. Together, they will learn to see the beauty in the darkest places and find love where they never expected it.——Canon-compliant through The Drill, but assumes the timeline is longer. The comet is a couple years away and The Boy in the Iceberg - The Drill takes ~3 years. All the characters are aged up to explore a more mature (in all meanings of the word) dynamic.
Relationships: Blue Spirit/Painted Lady, Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 119





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Welcome to my newest endeavor. I've been on a serious Zutara kick during quarantine and couldn't quite find the fic that I really wanted, so here we are. I hope you enjoy! To avoid confusion later on, please keep in mind that the timeline is expanded and everything takes longer. The comet is still a couple of years away, and the plot up until Team Avatar reaches Ba Sing Se takes about three years. ALSO, this story assumes that the episodes The Painted Lady and The Puppet Master occurred before they reached Ba Sing Se (in Fire Nation colonies rather than in the Fire Nation itself). Otherwise, everything is the same and anything you need to know should be explained in the story itself.

A wiser man might have seen it coming. 

Someone, perhaps like his Uncle, would have put the pieces together and known that, one way or another, it would always lead to  _ this _ : Zuko and Azula standing across the battlefield from each other, both ready to kill, both already knowing the victor.

Though even Uncle Iroh couldn’t have predicted that Zuko would be hidden behind a mask. He couldn’t have predicted that Azula might kill her brother without even knowing it.

And  _ no one _ could have foreseen the other woman, the woman who stood with her shoulders pressed to Zuko’s as if it gave her strength.

The Painted Lady.

_ Destiny is a funny thing _ .

Thunder rumbled overhead, heralding the strange autumn storms that Zuko had come to know in the last…  _ two years _ he’d spent in the Earth Kingdom.

Flashes of blue lightning coiled in the clouds and glittered at Azula’s fingertips. Most firebenders hated the rain. His little sister thrived in it.

But Zuko, clutching his twin swords and blinking against the light reflecting in the Blue Spirit mask, felt the energy stirring too. Each crack of thunder seemed to push him closer to… to  _ something— _ an end or a beginning or an edge or a wall.

Maybe the Painted Lady had dragged him to this unclear ultimatum. Maybe he’d been the one dragging her.

Or maybe… maybe every little choice they’d made since the first night they ran together through the Lower Ring had been building up to this. Maybe they hadn’t been dragging each other. Maybe they’d been running toward this together.

As if Azula could read the conflict in him even through the mask, she smiled. It was a cold, cruel thing, and she tilted her head like a foxcat toying with its prey.

Zuko’s fingers tightened around the hilts of his swords.

The Painted Lady’s spine pressed against his and she breathed, slow and calm and steady, like the tide of an ocean he hadn’t seen in years. Her hair whipped in the wind around them, mixing her jade and honey scent with the smell of rain and ozone in the air. He could feel the beat of her heart through their bodies and her incredible, infinite, fragile strength pulsed through him too, like a rush deep in the marrow of his bones.

He’d never said it, but he was glad to have her on his side. He was  _ glad _ he’d almost run her over that night almost a year ago, glad she’d run with him from the Dai Li, and glad for everything that happened after.

_ “Life happens wherever you are, whether you make it or not.” _

Uncle Iroh’s words, spoken nearly a year ago, came to Zuko in that moment. They were vivid, clear, like finally grasping all the hazy details of a recurring dream. And, for the first time, they meant something.

Zuko took another breath.

A beat passed.

The world seemed to slow to a stop in his moment of futile epiphany. 

Perhaps it was fitting, in the end, to recall his Uncle’s advice. Perhaps his Uncle had seen this coming in more ways than Zuko cared to admit. 

With the Painted Lady at his back and the Blue Spirit mask settled firmly on his face, he knew that Iroh had been right. Life had happened when Zuko hadn’t been paying attention. It had happened on its own when he’d been trying to make something else. 

And only now when he was about to lose the life he’d unwittingly built, only now when the Painted Lady was sure to die some horrible death at Azula’s hands, did he give it the thought he should have given it ages ago.

But he didn’t have to look to know the woman behind him was gathering water from the air. She didn’t plan on giving up, not here, not against Azula.

_ “The Fire Nation never gives up,” the Painted Lady had said once, sitting atop the roof that had become their unintentional meeting place. The moonlight tangled in her wild hair and turned her blue eyes silver. “I can’t give up either.” _

_ He’d said nothing, and perhaps she thought he was questioning the statement because she continued, “They want to destroy our only hope for peace. They don’t stop to think about the consequences that could come if they get what they want.” _

_ He couldn’t tell her what it was  _ he _ wanted—it was far, far too complicated—and the conversation had ended with them parting ways, as they always did. _

But now they had nowhere to run.

“I’d tell you to take off those masks and reveal who you are, but I don’t really care.” Azula’s voice, casual and languid, cut through the humid, stormy air. Her allies shifted into a circle around them, closing them in. Lightning danced between her fingers, casting her pointed nails in sharp silhouette. 

If she shot the lightning, all was not lost. Zuko could drop his swords and hope he was fast enough to catch and redirect it. He flexed his hands on the hilts. A certain sense of inevitability settled over him, like tumbling over a cliff with no way to catch himself.

This could be the end.

Behind him, the Painted Lady took another breath. 

_ Life happens wherever you are. _

He didn’t need to look to know the woman at his back had fire in her ocean eyes. He didn’t need to look to know she was determined and bold and bracing herself for whatever was coming.

He didn’t need to remember his Uncle’s words to know that she  _ mattered _ . 

In spite of everything, she mattered.

He lowered himself into a fighting stance, ready to launch himself at his sister, and that horrible light glinted in her golden eyes. 

He hadn’t caught the Avatar, he couldn’t return home with his honor. The life he’d been waiting for and wanting hadn’t been the life that had happened.

_ This _ was the life he’d made, for better or worse.

And if this was the end, maybe he’d at least done something right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it doesn't make any sense. Don't worry, this is just the prologue. After this, we go back in time to when they first meet. 
> 
> Comments are always appreciated! 
> 
> Until next time,  
> Tharros  
> Twitter: [@tharroswrites](https://twitter.com/tharroswrites)


	2. Breathe Through It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who left kudos and comments so far! I wanted to get this chapter out kind of fast since the prologue didn't make much sense on its own. I hope you enjoy!

The Lower Ring smelled of sorrow and unwashed bodies. It reeked of sickness and iron and rotten food.

It smelled like the refugee boat they'd stepped off of moments before, but deeper, worse, as though the stench had time to seep into every crack and corner of this spirits-forsaken section of the city.

"Isn't it magnificent?" Uncle Iroh asked, a wide grin stretching across his face as he hiked his small pack higher on his shoulder.

But the smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

Zuko clenched and unclenched his fists as he surveyed the city. They'd arrived on the rail and been shepherded into the Lower Ring station with the other refugees, where people in pale green uniforms were handing out makeshift maps and information.

Uncle Iroh joined the throng of people around a flustered looking woman with thick brown braids, but Zuko remained where he was. He could feel Jet's eyes on them from across the station. They burned into the back of his neck like a brand.

 _He knew_.

He'd seen Uncle Iroh heating his tea with firebending. Jet _knew_.

He didn't know the extent, of course. They looked nothing like royalty in their dirty, borrowed clothes. But Zuko's appearance wasn't exactly discrete.

And the last thing he needed was anyone finding out who he was.

The small woman traveling with Jet, Smellerbee, tugged on Jet's sleeve and forced him to turn away, and the other man, Longshot, stood between Jet and Zuko.

 _Good_ , Zuko thought, jerking his head toward Uncle Iroh and together, they hurried out of the station.

"The job agency she told me about is this way… I think," Iroh said, unfolding a scrap of paper with a few basic directions sketched in hasty strokes.

Zuko nodded and remained silent as they skirted the outer wall. Houses and apartment buildings were piled on top of one another, climbing up the wall and spilling into the city haphazardly. It was so different from the sprawling but meticulous Fire Nation Capital.

A twinge of buried longing rattled through his bones and turned his empty stomach sour. How many years had it been since he'd seen the sloping, elegant city of his birth?

Nearly six years now. He'd be lying if he said he didn't know the time down to the number of days.

And six years worth of instinct had his danger sense prickling. He dodged just in time as someone dumped waste from a third-story window. It splattered on the street and sent a wave of foul stench toward him.

"Watch it!" he yelled up, but the window slammed shut.

"Stay on your toes, nephew," Iroh said, looking up at the window and back down at his rough map as he started walking faster. Zuko kept pace, but nothing seemed to change. The labyrinth of tilted, crumbling buildings looked the same no matter how many streets they crossed.

He hated it.

The air within the city walls was thick and stale and stagnant. Ba Sing Se had always claimed to be a city free of Fire Nation control, but if this was freedom, Zuko didn't see what there was to boast about.

They reached the… _agency_ , if the tall, thin building could even be called that. It leaned dangerously against the apartment complex beside it and the shutters hung, half-splintered, from the window panes. As Zuko followed his Uncle through the dark green door, it squawked on its hinges in protest.

Zuko blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting inside and tried to keep from gagging as the mold and must hit him like a stone wall.

It was a simple space, long and narrow with a desk at the back and boxes stuffed with papers stacked all around. Parts of the walls had rotted away and were covered with threadbare blankets nailed to the wood.

A small, wiry man sat behind the desk, and he looked up at them as they entered through a pair of cracked brass spectacles. He had a pointy, birdy-like face with beady eyes and a skinny, hooked nose.

Iroh smiled at him. Zuko did not.

"Names?" The man had a scratchy, hoarse voice, and Zuko glanced at the desk to see a pipe and a small brown box beside it.

"I'm Mushi, and this is my nephew, Lee," his Uncle said, giving a polite bow of his head.

It was an effort to keep from bristling at his Uncle's politeness.

"No family name?" the man asked, scratching something on a piece of parchment with a stiff, unwashed brush.

"None of any importance."

The man nodded. "Skills?"

"Hmm," Iroh said, rubbing his chin as he considered the question, and Zuko had the feeling he was going to regret letting his Uncle do all the talking. "We are fine teamakers!"

"And I'm good with a blade," Zuko added quickly.

There was the slightest hesitation in the man's brush strokes and an upward twitch at the corner of his mouth. He gave Zuko a brief scrutinizing look, a strange glint in his eye, before looking down and scribbling something else. Zuko tried to make out what he was writing, but the script was untidy, unpracticed, like he hadn't learned to write until later in life.

"I think I have just the thing."

The man rolled up the parchment he'd been writing on and shoved it into a too-full drawer before opening another drawer. Small cards of parchment were crammed inside, and he flicked through them until he found what he was looking for. He held out one of the cards to Iroh, and Zuko caught a glimpse of tiny writing in neat lines.

His Uncle squinted in the dim light, moving the card closer and then farther away as he tried to read the words.

"Pao Family Tea House!" he said after a moment. "In the Lantern District. That sounds excellent, doesn't it, nephew?"

Zuko groaned. " _Excellent._ Right."

His Uncle gave the smaller man another bow and thanked him for his help, but Zuko was out of the building before he could hear the man's reply.

He could feel eyes on him again, but it was different this time. Not Jet. Not the watchful gaze of someone who _knew_ and was waiting for a slip-up. This gaze felt curious, but sinister, and Zuko whirled, looking around the street to try to find the source.

Something in the shadows near the agency caught his eye, and he turned again, catching sight of a dark green cloak disappearing inside the agency building.

Zuko narrowed his eyes, but Iroh grabbed his arm.

"Come, nephew! We need to find an apartment before the sun sets."

He wanted to protest, but Iroh gave him a look that said he knew more than his jovial mask let on. Zuko nodded and let his Uncle drag him back down the street toward another residential district.

———

The Upper Ring smelled of wildflowers and freshly baked bread. The gentle scent of herbal tea and honeycomb wafted through the air as the autumn sun warmed the pavement and cast golden shadows through the changing leaves. Petals floated through the ponds and rivers that trickled just _so_ beside the paths, and bronze lanterns were being lit to brighten the streets at twilight.

Katara thought it was beautiful.

But there was a tension to it, too, like a coiled widowsnake ready to strike. It went beyond the list of city rules that Joo Dee had rattled off like a list of house specials. It was more than the way they'd been shepherded around, more than the division and the walls.

Katara hated the walls.

Looking at the walls from the Upper Ring, she felt like she was Master Pakku telling someone women could only train at the healing hut. She felt like she was proclaiming herself _better_ than the people on the other side of the wall.

In her experience, those who professed to be better were often far, far, worse.

She wouldn't let herself get swept away by the pretty picture the Upper Ring painted. They'd traveled through the lower rings to get here. She'd seen those people. She'd seen the conditions they'd been forced to live in. By the simple fortune of traveling with Aang, she'd been spared. But if she'd showed up here alone, she would have found herself in the lowest ring of the city.

"What's got you all on edge, Sweetness?" Toph asked, feet propped up on the long dining table in their new home. She picked something from her nose and flicked it away, but Katara didn't have the energy to chastise her on it.

Let her destroy this perfect house a bit. Maybe that would make it feel less claustrophobic.

Katara bit her lip. "Don't you feel it? Like we're…" she dropped her voice to a whisper, "being watched?"

Toph laughed derisively. "Welcome to big city life, Katara."

"It's more than that and you know it," Katara said with a frown. "Don't you feel like something… strange is going on?"

"Everything about this place is weird," Sokka said, waving his chopsticks around. "Are you talking about the way Joo Dee doesn't listen to us at all or the fact that we can't see the Earth King for like two months? Or maybe you're talking about the way everyone seems to be avoiding us? Or that there were like a hundred posters for missing people in the Middle Ring? Or those creepy Dai Li guys? I mean who needs a whole police force to handle the _cultural heritage_ of a city anyway?"

He slurped his noodles and Katara tugged at the end of her braid. "Maybe I'm just on edge after everything that's happened recently."

"I would have thought you'd love this place, Sweetness. Aren't rules and restrictions your thing?"

"Some rules can be helpful, you know," Katara snapped. " _Some_ rules keep society from degrading into some kind of mass free-for-all."

"Eh," Toph said with a shrug. "I think things would probably end up sorting themselves out."

Katara clenched her fists in frustration. "Or things would just turn into survival of the fittest!"

"What's wrong with that?"

"Everything!" Katara threw her hands up in the air, the tension that had been building finally exploding out at the one person who could take it and give it back. "Everything is wrong with that! That's probably what the Fire Nation thinks! Strong benders are all that matter and everyone else better roll over and take it or there's no place for them in society."

"You're comparing _me_ to the _Fire Nation_?"

"No! I'm telling you to _think_ about what you're saying! I know you don't believe that."

"Of course I don't think like the Fire Nation, _Sweetness_ , but I'm also not stupid enough to think that some aristocracy in some palace somewhere knows how to make rules that apply to everyone!"

" _I_ didn't say they _did!_ I—"

"GUYS!" Aang said, his voice louder and deeper than normal. "You're not doing anyone any good by yelling at each other."

Katara let out an angry breath through her nose. She pushed her chair out from the table with enough force to knock it over, but she caught the back before it fell. "You're right, Aang. I'm going for a walk. I need to clear my head."

"Oh!" Sokka said. "See if you can find a market! Joo Dee gave us some money and I bet they have some _nice_ stuff here!"

She took another steadying breath. "I'll see what I can find."

Then, grabbing her waterskin and not looking back, she left the house.

An hour later, she was certain someone was following her.

It started with eyes crawling up the back of her neck, and she found herself looping and turning abruptly and ducking around corners at random to try to lose the tail.

She couldn't tell if it was Joo Dee or the Dai Li or something else, but her heart beat too fast in her chest. Amid the easy, carefree conversation of the other people on the street, she felt paranoid and more than a little crazy, but she couldn't shake the feeling of being _watched_.

Fear was a familiar drumbeat in her chest as she slipped into the crowd at a wide, outdoor market. Lanterns burned brightly all around, bathing the square in their amber glow.

Fresh flowers filled the air with soft perfume and fruit vendors worked tables full of brightly colored produce. There were stalls displaying elaborate dresses and others that offered delicate porcelain tea sets. Rare teas and fine jewelry and beautiful paintings filled the wide cobblestone square with so many colors, but in her travel-worn Water Tribe blue, she still felt out of place among the finely-dressed nobility of the Earth Kingdom.

She definitely looked like she didn't belong.

And, come to think of it, it was probably the blue that made her easy to follow.

 _Stupid_ , she thought, but there was nothing for it now.

She slipped through the crowd, weaving and turning like a stream through a forest. Why would someone be following her? Were she and Aang and everyone else really being watched that closely? What was the point?

When she reached the end of the market, she found the wide, guarded opening that led to the Middle Ring. It felt like a breath of fresh air and she started toward it.

"May I ask where you're going, miss?"

Katara whirled around and found herself looking up at a tall man, dressed in the dark green robes of the Dai Li. His brown hair was tied into a neat top knot and his clean-shaven face had an ageless sort of look to it. Likely, he was only a year or two older than she was, but it was difficult to tell.

Was he the one who'd been following her?

"I was just exploring the city." Goosebumps prickled unpleasantly up her spine.

She was a master waterbender, why did this city make her feel so on edge?

"I would not recommend visiting the lower rings. I assure you, the Upper Ring has everything you could possibly need." He took a step toward her and she took a step back, hand going to her waterskin. He merely chuckled and held up his hands as if to show he meant no harm. "My name is Shen. May I escort you back to your home? The sun has set and it doesn't do to walk alone at night."

Katara narrowed her eyes. "What's so bad about the other rings?"

Shen laughed again. He had a nice smile, but his voice was a cold wind. "Isn't it obvious? When refugees make their homes here, they have nothing. They're forced to crowd into small spaces and many resort to crime in order to get ahead of each other. It's no place for a woman of culture like yourself."

"If you gave the refugees more opportunities, rather than cramming all of them into tiny places as soon as they get here, maybe your crime rate wouldn't be so high. If you just—"

"You say that as though you have experience with such things." His tone was dismissive enough that the goosebumps on Katara's skin turned to a flush of angry heat. "Come. I'll walk you home."

"No."

A twitch of his eyebrow was the only sign of irritation on his face. "Now, now. There's no need to be contrary, miss."

As he spoke, the shadows around the gate and the base of the wall shifted, and Katara's eyes widened as more Dai Li came into view.

"Are you _threatening_ me?"

"Of course not, miss. Merely assuring you that no harm will come to you. Now, allow me to escort you home."

She wanted to scream or slap him or freeze his feet to the ground and run. But… but they needed to find Appa.

"Fine," she growled. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides and she turned, stalking off toward the house without waiting to see if he followed.

———

The moonlight glinted off Zuko's dao swords as he crouched atop the highest roof he could find in the Lower Ring. Autumn in the Earth Kingdom came with a chill, but Zuko had spent a winter at the North Pole, and the cool breeze here was refreshing.

The wind carried with it the stale scent of the slums, but something else, too, up here. It almost smelled like flowers.

For a moment, it reminded him of the gardens his mother had loved so much. From the back of the Royal Fire Nation Palace tumbled hundreds of flowers and trees, bright and light and always reaching for the sun. The sweet scent would flow through the open windows and settle in the curtains of his mother's room, and when he was young, he'd curl up in the large window seat and listen to her stories.

Zuko shook the memory away before it overwhelmed him and focused instead on the stink of this new place.

From his vantage point, he could see the homes and streets of the Lower Ring stretching out to his left and right. Through the mask settled on his face, he saw crammed market streets, currently filled with empty stalls, a few open squares with half-kept-up fountains, and in the distance, a tucked-away alley full of red lanterns glowed in the moonlight. Zuko had seen enough of the world to know what _that_ was, and he looked away, toward the wall that led outward into the rest of the Earth Kingdom beyond.

He'd sailed the oceans of this world from on pole to the other. He'd stood on every continent and looked at the stars from so many different angles. But trapped within these walls was the first time Zuko felt…

Small.

He gritted his teeth and squeezed the hilts of his twin swords. He didn't need them, he had nowhere to go. He didn't need to steal useless things to build a life that he didn't want in this city of stench and separation.

He just needed _air_.

Groaning, he sheathed the swords and stood, ready to make for the small apartment they'd found near the tea shop, but something snagged his attention.

Another green-cloaked figure lurking in the shadows.

It was the Earth Kingdom and green was a pervasive color, but there was something about the way the man in the shadows held himself—straight-backed and proud—that told Zuko he wasn't part of the typical Lower Ring crowd.

Silently, Zuko slid from the roof, wondering if they had been watching close enough to see Lee go into the apartment and the Blue Spirit leave through the back window. He doubted it, but if he could catch the man off guard, then maybe he could get a few questions in.

But when he reached the alcove, the man was gone.

Growling low in his throat, Zuko turned and found himself at the outside of a square. Homeless refugees huddled around small fires, warming their hands against the chilly autumn breeze. Concealed by the shadow of the alcove, he glanced around, looking for a way out, when he saw three familiar figures standing around one of the fires.

He skirted around the edge of the square, his feet silent on the rough stone. The trio stood a ways away from everyone else, and Zuko crouched behind a pile of garbage just outside the light of their fire.

"There is definitely something strange going on with those guards," the woman, Smellerbee whispered. "But maybe they're just trying to protect their home—"

"But you heard them talking about finding a dragon," Jet said, face set in determination—the type of man who thought he was always right. "What do earthbenders want with a _dragon_?"

"I don't know! But what does it matter?"

"It matters because I don't think we can trust them."

"Jet, they run the city—"

"That doesn't make them good. You've seen the way things are set up here."

"I didn't say they were _good_ , but it's better than being out there at the mercy of the Fire Nation army."

"That's the thing, though. If they _are_ looking for a dragon, what if that means they're allied with the firebenders? What if we get proof about Lee and his uncle? How can we trust the Dai Li to take care of it?"

Zuko resisted the urge to draw his swords and launch himself at Jet right then and there.

Smellerbee groaned and her voice took on a desperate edge. "Jet, I'm begging you. Please, _please_ let it go. It doesn't matter why they're here! They didn't _do_ anything to us."

"But what if they were trying to gain our trust? What if they needed to get to the city unnoticed so they could do whatever it is they came for?"

"What do you think they came for? I'm sure there are people in the Fire Nation who don't support—"

"You _can't_ believe that," Jet said, shaking his head and dragging a hand through his hair. He glanced around and Zuko faded deeper into the shadows. "Maybe at the beginning, but it's been a _hundred_ years. They probably teach this propaganda in schools and—"

"Do you hear yourself?" Smellerbee demanded, withdrawing her hands from near the fire to put them on her hips instead. "Look, just… drop it, okay? If there's something going on, I'm sure the authorities will figure it out. If the Dai Li are working with the Fire Nation, then our best bet right now is to try not to get noticed at all."

"Longshot? Come on, you _have_ to be with me on this."

Longshot, however, stood with his back to Zuko, so he couldn't see the other man's face.

"I get it," Jet said after a moment, his frown deepening. "I'll figure it out on my own then."

He brushed past Smellerbee and Longshot and started heading in Zuko's direction, and Zuko turned and darted now a nearby alley before Jet could see him.

But there was someone waiting in the shadows and Zuko barely had time to react as the earth beneath his feet shifted, trying to grab him and pull him down.

Zuko jumped, flinging himself at the figure in dark green robes and using the man's shoulders to launch himself up and over him, onto an awning of another building. He scrambled up the side, his gloved hands grasping at the cracks and crevices. As he pulled himself up onto the roof, Zuko glanced back in time to see two fists made of rock flying toward him and he grabbed his swords, slashing them out of the air.

He didn't look down again as he darted off along the rooftop.

———

Katara was still fuming.

She'd returned from her walk with Shen and two other Dai Li agents in tow, and when they reached the house, she could feel their eyes on her as until she shut and locked the door behind her.

Two hours later, she'd bathed in the too-fancy tub and changed into a too-soft silk nightdress, but she paced back and forth in her room like a caged wolfbear.

Her hands shook too much to re-braid her hair, and instead she'd tugged it into a lopsided bun atop her head. Strands struggled free and tickled her cheeks and she pushed them roughly away.

Honestly, she had half a mind to march right up to the Earth King's palace and demand to know what was wrong with this city. How could they—

"Katara?" A soft knock followed the sound of her name outside the door.

"What?" she snapped, then, feeling immediately guilty, she took a deep breath and then another, trying to work her face into something that resembled _calm_. "Sorry Aang. You can come in."

He pushed the door open slowly, his eyes widening as he saw her in the nightgown and he swallowed hard, looking up at the ceiling as his face turned red. "Toph said you were...um... pacing."

She yanked a robe on over the nightgown and pulled the band from her hair altogether. "Thanks for coming to check on me, Aang, but it's nothing."

He glanced at her again, his face still red. Rubbing back of his neck, he said, "I'd hoped we'd be able to talk to the king much sooner. I know this place is… different from most of the places we've been. Honestly, I just want to find Appa and get out of here."

"I'm worried though," Katara said, turning to look out the opened wall panel at the back of her room. The garden behind the house was bathed in tranquil moonlight. She'd thought the view would soothe her, but the moon had just reinvigorated her. "Even if we leave and go on to win the war, Ba Sing Se will still be… this. I feel like we have to do _something_ here."

"W-what do you mean?"

She whirled to look at him. "We have to help the people in the Lower Ring!"

Aang flinched.

Toph banged on the wall between their rooms. "Would you shut up in there! Someone could be listening."

"We have to help them," Katara said again, more softly.

"I want to help them too, Katara," Aang said, still rubbing the back of his neck and not quite meeting her eyes. "But Appa has to come first. If we can't find Appa, we can't help anyone. And if we never talk to the Earth King, there might be no invasion, and then—"

"You're right," she said, because she knew by now it wasn't worth arguing about. At least not now, not here where the walls had ears and Aang wasn't really himself. "You're right, Aang. We'll start looking for Appa first thing in the morning, okay? I promise."

He nodded and for a moment, he looked so small. He looked like the twelve-year-old boy who'd first told her how he never wanted to be the Avatar, not the fifteen-year-old he was now, not the person who had saved people all over the world already.

It softened the edges of her anger but hardened her resolve. Aang couldn't do everything for everyone. She would have to fill the gaps.

"We'll find him, Aang. He's here. I know it."

"Thanks, Katara."

"You should get some rest. We have a long day tomorrow."

"Right," he said with a nod, and his eyes were still too hollow for Katara's liking as he turned and left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Katara dashed to her wardrobe. Inside hung several Earth Kingdom-style dresses that had been provided with the house. (She didn't ask how they'd perfectly guessed her measurements). But that wasn't what she was looking for. Her bag hung, fully packed, on a hook on the wardrobe door, and she pulled it down and rummaged through it until she found the flowing grey dress and the small jars of facepaint within.

Becoming the Painted Lady was easy now, and as Katara slipped from her nightgown and into the dress, it seemed a little easier to breathe. Like the walls of this city couldn't hold a spirit.

Katara tucked her waterskin beneath the dress and slipped out the panel and into the garden. The autumn wind swirled through her hair and caught the honey and jade scent of her soap. Moonlight cast long shadows through the trees and Katara kept to them as she left the garden and made her way through the Upper Ring.

In spite of the hour, people were still out. Some sat chatting at outdoor tea parlors, others walked or sat on benches under lamplight. Laughter and pleasant conversation surrounded her, and no one glanced toward the shadows.

No one worried what might be lurking.

Katara frowned and made her way toward the gate to the Middle Ring, but found it heavily guarded. No wonder everyone felt safe. There was no risk of the refugees and lower classes getting inside.

It made her blood burn.

She lifted her hands, drawing water from a nearby fountain and working it into a thick fog. Slowly, as if it were natural, she curled it around the legs and then up the torsos of the guards. She let it settle in front of their eyes, and as they began to discuss the strangeness of it, she crept by and out into the Middle Ring.

Ducking behind a nearby building, she let the fog disperse.

The Middle Ring was nice without the opulence of the Upper Ring. People milled about here too, though it seemed to be primarily university students in larger groups. Most of the shops seemed to be closed for the night, and there were long stretches of darkness between street lamps.

Though she was sure it had its problems too, the Middle Ring was not her destination.

She continued on, ignoring the calls of a few drunk students and memorizing the faces on some of the missing person posters that seemed to hang from every lamp post, and by the time she reached the next wall, her breathing was coming quicker.

Looking up at the sky, the moon had moved quite a bit. It had taken an hour, maybe more, to make it this far.

"Most things worth doing aren't going to be easy," she told herself, stretching her arms and cracking her knuckles as she reached the gate to the Lower Ring. It was guarded, too, and she made quick work of her fog this time. These guards seemed less alert anyway, and in moments, she was standing in a slum.

The first thing she noticed was the smell—so pungent and rank compare to the Middle and Upper Rings.

Katara was reminded of the prison camp where they'd found Haru's father. She was reminded of the tribes who traveled the Great Divide and that fishing town in the colonies where the Fire Nation had polluted the river.

She wrinkled her nose and told herself to deal with it. These people had to _live_ with it. She had a fancy house in the Upper Ring to return to.

It made her feel a little queasy. It was so _wrong_.

She needed a better vantage point to figure out where to start, and glancing around, she saw a building that looked tall enough. It was crumbling in places and so it held plenty of hand and foot holds for her to use.

Pulling herself up, she made it to the roof and looked out at the city before her.

Her heart sank. Her shoulders slumped.

It was _huge_. It swept out in every direction and no street seemed nicer than the next.

She'd known it would take more than a night to make it even marginally better, but looking at it now, she realized she could work the rest of her life and not touch every corner of this place.

But, she supposed, it made it easy to pick a place to start. Right where she was.

She took a breath and felt the Painted Lady's makeup stretch on her skin. She couldn't help them all, not in one night, but she wouldn't help anyone just standing there watching.

So, she slid down from the rooftop, her flowing grey dress billowing in the stale breeze. Her hair, unbound and wild, still smelled of the honey and jade soap from the house in the Upper Ring, and now she wrinkled her nose against the sweetness.

 _Sweetness_ , the name Toph called her that afternoon when she claimed Katara ought to love Ba Sing Se, ought to love the walls and rules and supervision.

She stood before a well clogged with debris and took a breath as she bent the water free and cleaned it. It swirled through the air in front of her, sticks and mud and rocks clattering to the ground. And like those stones, she dropped the pang of anger at Toph's words.

Or, she tried to.

If only it were that simple.

She bent the sparkling water back into the well and moved on, using the murky water collected in the gutters to wash vomit and blood and garbage from the narrow streets as she walked.

Sometimes, she felt eyes on her—the hungry leer of men, the hopeful glance of children, the cautious stare of people who had been hurt too many times.

When people stared too long, she whipped up a mist around her body, using the water in the hems of her dress to make it float on phantom wind. The Earth Kingdom didn't know the Painted Lady, but anyone looking at her now would believe she was a spirit in the night.

A sick house sat wedged between two apartment buildings at the end of the street, and though most of the lights were off inside, she could hear the groaning of people in pain and smell the stench of death that hung like persistent fog.

Katara made quick work of the place, scaling the walls and slipping in and out of windows. She healed who she could and eased the suffering of those she could not cure.

It wasn't enough. It was never enough, and as she left the building, her breathing shook—with effort and exertion and anger all in one. Looking out at the rest of the Lower Ring, she knew it was far too big and dense for her to ever help everyone who needed it.

Even if it really did take months to see the Earth King.

The moon still hung in the sky, and Katara closed her eyes, taking in the gentle energy of it. If Yue had strength left, then so did she.

But when she turned, someone was barreling down the alley toward her.

He was dressed all in black with a blue mask over his face. He carried a sword in each hand and like instinct, she whipped water toward him, curling it around his wrists as he got close.

He skidded to a halt and in his surprise, she yanked on the water whips and sent his swords clattering in either direction.

The man growled a curse and yanked himself free, rushing at her and making to elbow her in the side of the head. She ducked out of the way and he spun, and she froze the ground beneath his feet. He seemed prepared for it, though, and didn't lose his footing. Instead, he crouched, using the ice to slide further down the alley.

He reached the end and rolled to the side, snatching one sword from the ground and standing smoothly, the blade pointed at her.

"What do you think you're doing?" he hissed through the mask.

" _Me?_ What are _you_ doing?" she asked before she could stop herself. She whipped water toward his second sword and grabbed it, pulling it to her and catching it in her hand. She had no idea how to use a sword—she'd always used bending for everything—and it felt too large in her hand. "You can't just run at somebody with swords out and expect them to do nothing."

"I wasn't running _at_ you," he said, taking a few steps toward her and bringing his sword to the one she held. The blade clanged against her own and sent a tremor up her arm. "Give it back and I won't have to hurt you."

"Who _do_ you plan to hurt?" she demanded instead, taking a step back and gathering water with her free hand. She held it in front of her, ready to attack or shield herself, whatever she needed.

The blue stranger seemed unphased as he launched himself at her. She divided her water into three spikes of ice, but he wove through them like he'd done it a hundred times. Katara pulled the water back to her, but he was already under her guard, standing so close that her chest brushed his as she breathed.

She glared. Maybe he glared back, but she couldn't see his eyes.

He grabbed the wrist of her sword-hand and flicked it, putting pressure beneath her thumb to make her drop it. Katara flung a water whip at the man, but he dropped low and swung his feet around to knock her legs out from under her.

Stars danced across her vision as her back slammed into the ground and the sword went flying from her hand.

"See? That wasn't so hard," he said, his voice almost a purr as he knelt and took the other sword.

He didn't so much as glance at her again as he took off down the street.

It probably wasn't the best use of her time, but he'd just wiped the floor with her and her pride stung enough to make her stand and whip water toward his ankle. It wrapped around his boot and sent him crashing to the ground.

He growled again and leapt back to his feet, spinning the swords in his hands as he turned to face her. "I'm a little busy at the moment, in case you hadn't noticed. I was trying to get _away_ from something. Not fight a random stranger in the middle of the street."

She didn't drop the water, but her guard slipped just a little at his words. "Get away from what?"

He caught sight of something over her shoulder. "Them."

When he started running, she decided she didn't need to look. She threw a wall of ice up behind her and dashed off after the man in the mask deeper into the slums of the Lower Ring.

———

Once, Zuko's heart might have thundered in his chest with the adrenaline rush, but after years of running both from and towards things, after years of yearning and fearing and fighting, he was calm as his body carried him over rooftops. He'd feared being found out more than he feared a fight, especially a fight with an earthbender who did nothing but slink in the shadows.

But the woman on his heels gave him pause. Most of the people he'd met in the Earth Kingdom had either been brustish or meek, but she moved with a refined sort of grace that spoke to her clear heritage as a waterbender. More than that, though, she moved like a master.

He'd only ever battled one master waterbender before, but the elegance and fluidity of the movements was striking. Perhaps that was why Uncle had enjoyed studying their technique.

Zuko almost groaned aloud at his own thought, but shook himself. There was more than the fact that the woman clearly didn't belong in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se.

It was the pattern of the face paint. He _knew_ that face, knew that legend.

But it was a _Fire Nation_ legend. What was she doing here in the heart of the Earth Kingdom?

It didn't make any sense.

They reached the outer wall without a word, and Zuko hoisted himself up one of the half-crumbling buildings that leaned against the wall. The clay fell away in places as he grabbed it, but Zuko was quick enough that he'd moved on before he could lose his grip.

He rolled onto the flat roof and stood, looking out at the Lower Ring, searching for anything moving in the shadows.

The woman followed, curling water into ice picks in her hands to help with the assent. Once they both stood on the roof, they were silent, looking out at the city and catching their breath.

Zuko had had many strange experiences in the six years since his banishment—he'd had some strange experiences _before_ that too—but running through Earth Kingdom slums with a waterbender dressed as a Fire Nation spirit was definitely a first.

The silence stretched on, but Zuko rarely felt the need to disturb a silence, and in spite of a few burning questions, he kept his mouth shut.

She, still looking out over the city with a strange sadness in her eyes, spoke first.

"Who are you? Why were the Dai Li chasing you?"

He looked at her from the corner of his eye, trying to size her up without letting her know it was what he was doing. "I'm not wearing the mask just for the hell of it."

The Dai Li, she'd said. He'd heard the name in passing. Something about cultural leaders in the city. Why would they be in the Lower Ring? Why would they be following him?

"Right," she said, pursing her lips and looking out over the buildings and alleys. The moonlight bleached the world, bathing it in pale light.

"What are _you_ supposed to be?"

She was quiet for a long moment. So long that Zuko thought she wouldn't answer at all. Then, "I'm just someone trying to help."

He scoffed. "Help? Help what?"

She gestured out to the city below them.

"There's nothing down there worth helping," he said. Just dirty slums and men who lurked in the shadows. Just masses of people who wanted little from life. Just people like Jet, who would rather obsess over the lives of others than live their own.

"That's not true."

She smelled like honey and jade. "You haven't spent a lot of time here."

A frown curled on her painted lips. "What does that matter?"

Zuko sighed.

"What? So you think if I spent more time here I would stop caring? I would see that there wasn't anyone worth helping?"

He didn't respond. Instead, he lowered himself into a sitting position, his legs hanging over the edge of the roof. He would wait a while before returning to the apartment to make sure no one was following him.

"You're wrong," she said, sitting as well, leaving several feet of space between them as she pulled water from a waterskin and started rubbing it along the back of her neck. It glowed with the light of the moon.

"You're idealistic." His voice was blunt. He wanted to ask why she chose the Painted Lady, but doing so would give him away for knowing the myth in the first place.

"Someone has to be."

After that, they were quiet again, and slowly, the pink light of dawn began to creep over the high walls of the city. The stars flickered out one by one, and as the moon descended in the distance, the woman stood.

"I'm going to keep doing everything I can," she said, lowering herself over the side of the building. "Maybe you should try a little idealism yourself."

He remained quiet, torn between telling her he didn't really care and asking who she was. Instead, he watched as she reached the ground and hurried off, disappearing into the labyrinth of the Lower Ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might be able to tell, I plan to diverge quite a bit from the canon storyline in Ba Sing Se. I hope this chapter didn't seem too close to canon so as to be boring. XD Don't worry, it'll get more and more different as we go!
> 
> Comments are the Outside in the middle of quarantine. 
> 
> Much love,  
> Tharros  
> Twitter: [@tharroswrites](https://twitter.com/tharroswrites)


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